Troy Davis' clemency bid fails

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles on Friday rejected a clemency request by Troy Anthony Davis in what likely was the Savannah murder convict's last shot at avoiding execution.

Davis, 38, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7 p.m. Sept. 23 at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison near Jackson. He was convicted in the 1989 slaying of off-duty Savannah police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail.

The board gave no reason for its decision, which was announced Friday afternoon.

The board is the only noncourt body in Georgia that can grant clemency in a death case.

"Absent something extraordinary, he's out of appeals," Chief Assistant District Attorney David Lock said Friday afternoon while returning from Atlanta.

Lock said he was "not necessarily surprised" at the speed of the board's decision, based on the content of the hearing.

Davis had an outpouring of support in his clemency bid from Amnesty International, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and others who argued he deserves a new trial based on what they called newly discovered evidence.

That evidence included recantations of testimony by six witnesses.

Jay Ewart, the lead defense attorney for Davis, said Friday that he has filed an emergency motion, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the execution until it can review the case.

The nation's high court returns to session next week, but the court's review of the Davis case is not scheduled to occur until after his execution.

Former Savannah police Chief David Gellatly said Friday that Davis has exhausted his appeals.

"When Officer MacPhail was senselessly shot and killed, it had a very traumatic effect on the community and especially the police community," said Gellatly, who was police chief at the time.

Davis subsequently was tried, convicted and sentenced, Gellatly said.

"For the past 19 years, he has had appeal after appeal after appeal," he said of Davis. "This appears to be a final decision. I feel justice has been done, especially for his (MacPhail's) widow and his two children who never knew their father."

Both Lock and Gellatly were in Atlanta for the parole hearing.

District Attorney Spencer Lawton Jr., who also attended the hearing, declined to comment.

Wife relieved

"I felt like a whole load has been taken off my shoulders," said Joan MacPhail on learning of the decision on her husband's killer.

"What a relief," she said. "Words are not enough. I'm just finally glad we are going to have closure and that justice will be served."

Joan MacPhail said she would not be in Atlanta for the execution, but her son, Mark Allen MacPhail Jr., will be.

"Mark does not know him (his father) at all," Joan MacPhail said. "Madison (his daughter), just a little bit."

Martina Correia, Davis' sister and champion of his efforts to avoid execution, was not available for comment Friday.

"Nobody in that Parole Board room could have walked out today knowing with certainty that Davis committed murder," Feuer said in a news release. "The parole board went against its pledge to prevent the execution of any person where there is doubt as to his guilt."

Added Larry Cox, executive director for the group: "The U.S. Supreme Court must intervene immediately and unequivocally to prevent this perversion of justice."

More than 19 years

MacPhail was fatally shot Aug. 19, 1989, while working off-duty security at the Greyhound Bus Station/Burger King restaurant on Oglethorpe Avenue.

He was shot twice with a .38-caliber pistol as he rushed to assist a homeless man being beaten.

MacPhail never unholstered his weapon. Prosecutors said Davis shot MacPhail once in the heart while he was standing, then a second time in the face as he lay on the parking lot surface.

Davis fled to Atlanta ahead of a massive manhunt, then surrendered to authorities on Aug. 23, 1989.

Davis' lawyers contend he was the victim of mistaken identity, blaming Sylvester "Red" Coles for the shooting. Coles was placed at the bus station when the fatal shooting occurred, but he was never charged in the case.